Chomsky on the Rise of the South

" ... Actually what's happening in Bolivia is a striking example. The mostly white, Europeanized elite, which is a minority, happens to be sitting on most of the hydrocarbon reserves. And for the first time Bolivia is becoming democratic. So it's therefore bitterly hated by the West, which despises democracy, because it's much too dangerous. But when the indigenous majority actually took political power for the first time, in a very democratic election of the kind we can't imagine here, the reaction in the West was quite hostile. I recall, for example, an article - I think it was the Financial Times - condemning Morales as moving towards dictatorship because he was calling for nationalization of oil. They omitted to mention, with the support of about 90% of the population. But that's tyranny. Tyranny means you don't do what the United States says. Just like moderation means that you're like Saudi Arabia and you do do what we say.

There are now moves toward autonomy in the elite-dominated sectors in Bolivia, maybe secession, which will probably be backed by the United States to try and undercut the development of a democratic system in which the majority, which happens to be indigenous, will play their proper role, namely, cultural rights, control over resources, political and economic policy, and so on. That's happening elsewhere but strikingly in Bolivia.

The Bank of the South is a step towards integration of the countries. Could it weaken the IFIs, yes it can, in fact they're being weakened already. The IMF has been mostly thrown out of South America. Argentina quite explicitly said, "Okay, we're ridding ourselves of the IMF." And for pretty good reasons. They had been the poster child of the IMF. They had followed its policies rigorously and it led to terrible economic collapse. They did pull out of the collapse, namely by flatly rejecting the advice of the IMF. And it succeeded. They were able to pay off their debts, restructure their debts and pay them off with the help of Venezuela which picked up a substantial part of the debt. Brazil in its own way paid off its debt and rid itself of the IMF. Bolivia is moving in the same direction.

The IMF is in trouble now because it is losing its reserves. It was functioning on debt collection and if countries either restructured their debt or refused to pay it, they're in trouble. Incidentally the countries could legitimately refuse to pay much of the debt, because, in my opinion at least, it was illegal in the first place. For example, if I lend you money, and I know you're a bad risk, so I get high interest payments, and then you tell me at one point, sorry I can't pay anymore, I can't call on my neighbors to force you to pay me. Or I can't call on your neighbors to pay it off. But that's the way the IMF works. You lend money to a dictatorship and an elite, the population has nothing to do with it, you get very high interest because it's obviously risky, they say they can't pay it off, you say okay your neighbors will pay for it. It's called structural adjustment. And my neighbors will pay me off. That's the IMF as a creditors' cartel. You get higher taxes from the north.

[ ... ]

...they have to face the fact that the West will not allow it to happen. If you go back to 1974, that was the first move toward oil independence by the oil-rich countries. Just read what American journalists and commentators were writing. They were saying they have no right to the oil. The more moderate writers were saying the oil should be internationalized for the benefit of the world. American agricultural wealth shouldn't be internationalized for the benefit of the world, but the oil of Saudi Arabia should be because they're not following what we tell them to do anymore.

The more extreme people, I guess it was Irving Kristol, said insignificant nations like insignificant people sometimes gain illusions about their own significance. So therefore the age of gunboat diplomacy is never over, we'll just take it from them by force. Robert Tucker, a serious international relations specialist who is considered pretty moderate, said it's just a scandal that we're letting them get away with running their own resources. Why are we sitting here, we've got the military force to take them. Go back to somebody like George Kennan, who's considered a great humanist. When he was in the planning sector, in the late 1940s and early 1950s, he said harsh measures may be necessary for "protection of our resources" -- which happen to be in some other country. That's just an accident of geography. They're our resources and we have to protect them by harsh measures, including police states and so on.

Take Bill Clinton. He had a doctrine too, every president has a doctrine. He was less brazen about it than Bush, didn't get criticized a lot, but his doctrine was more extreme than the Bush doctrine if taken literally. The official Clinton doctrine presented to Congress was that the United States has the unilateral right to use military force to protect markets and resources. The Bush doctrine said we've got to have a pretext, like we've got to claim they're a threat. Clinton doctrine didn't even go that far, we don't need any pretext. With markets and resources, we have a right to make sure that we control them, which is logical on the principle that we own the world anyway so of course we have that right.

You're going to have to look far in the political spectrum to find any deviation from this. So if the oil-rich countries were to try to really take independent control of the resources, there would be a very harsh reaction. The United States, by now, has a military system; more is spent on the military system than the rest of the world put together. There's a reason for that. That's not to defend the borders. ... "

~ From Michael Shank, "Chomsky on the Rise of the South" (Washington, DC: Foreign Policy In Focus, January 30, 2008) ~

Valentine's Massacre (Again) In Illinois

On Valentine's Day, 1929, in Chicago, Illinois, five members of George 'Bugs' Moran's gang, a gang "follower", and a mechanic who happened to be at the scene were lined up against the rear inside wall of the garage of the SMC Cartage Company in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago's North Side. They were then shot and killed by four members of Al Capone's gang (two of them dressed as police officers). (“Saint Valentine's Day massacre,” Wikipedia, Feb. 15, 2008). Seventy-nine years later, again on St. Valentine's Day, again in Illinois, a massacre occurred at Northern Illinois University (NIU).

[ ... ]

 

But for now, it is “time to grieve,” reports Dan Stone in the student newspaper, “The Northern Star.” NIU president John Peters advises students to “remain calm and seek counseling and other support services that are being offered...” (“Officials stress now is the time to grieve,” Northern Star, Feb. 14, 2008)

The Valentine's Massacre Repeat at NIU takes place amidst ominous developments reported upon last week where a new trend in zombie eruptions -- multiple zombies appearing in multiple places – was noticed.

(“Release The Zombies,” http://www.shout.net/~bigred/Zombies.html).

 

Loren Coleman also noticed a change in pattern. “Change is in the air. And danger,” he wrote on Feb. 9, 2008. There have been “shifts in rampage shootings.” And, warned Coleman, “Look for major surprises in school shootings and similar mass rampages for this spring, unfortunately. Look again, too, to the months of March and April, with the red zone of the ten days from April 16 through April 26, 2008, as especially dangerous.”

(“Shootings Shatter Gender Barrier,” by Loren Coleman. http://copycateffect.blogspot.com/2008/02/shootings-shatter-gender-barrier.html)

Coleman's “Red Zone” of ten days between April 16 and April 26 coincides with the April 19 special marker. On that day, in 1993, the Waco Massacre final event occurred. Also on April 19, 1995, the Oklahoma City Bombings traumatized the nation. Latest news now surfacing is that Hillary Clinton (not Janet Reno) bears ultimate responsibility for the Waco disaster.

(“Hillary Clinton Ordered The Final Massacre At Waco,” http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?read=118982)

At this time there are “[c]onflicting reports and rumors” as to what happened yesterday at NIU. (“Students get rides home from parents, friends,” by Lee Blank. Northern Star, Feb. 14, 2008). Earlier, on Dec. 10, 2007, the school had been shut down following threats. The alleged shooter is described as a white male wearing a black shirt and with tattoos on his forearms. He also reportedly wore a black hat and dark glasses. (“Students describe aftermath of shooting,” by Katie Trusk. Northern Star, Feb. 14, 2008).

Seven people died in the 1929 St. Valentine's Day Massacre. Preliminary reports have five as the number of slain students in DeKalb, Illinois. However the local NPR affiliate has just upped that number to six students slain. If the alleged gunman is added to the total, that would equal seven dead – the same number killed in the earlier St. Valentine's Day Massacre...

~ Link ~

 

Open Source Intelligence: Private Sector Capabilities

Defense Daily Network Special Report, posted 5 May 1998 at . Dissemination of this paper, with full credit to DDN and OSS, is encouraged.

Open Source Intelligence: Private Sector Capabilities to Support DoD Policy, Acquisitions, and Operations

Executive Summary

DoD policy, acquisitions, and operations can be greatly enhanced and advanced through the use of Open Source Intelligence (OSINT). Several aspects of post-Cold War politico-military issues lend themselves to an increased use of OSINT to assist DoD policy-makers, acquisition program managers, and operational commanders:

(1) Contingencies tend to arise in lower Tier nations (per PDD-35) where U.S. classified capabilities are least applicable or largely unavailable.

(2) Warning of these crises has not required classified collection.

(3) These issues have required increased reliance on international organizations and non-traditional allies with whom information must be shared, which is difficult if not impossible with classified sources.

(4) The "information explosion" has increased the amount of available information, while also creating a new "intelligence gap" between what needs to be known, and what can be processed and exploited.

OSINT, like all other intelligence sources, is more than information. It represents a careful sifting, selecting, analyzing and presenting of open source material on a timely basis. OSINT should be a valuable contributor to "all source" intelligence, although it continually gets short shrift throughout the intelligence and policy communities.

Properly developed and implemented, the OSINT support process for DoD should include SI/TK buffers and full security assurances, proper attention to copyright compliance, access to all foreign language sources as well as automated translation technologies, very strong emphasis on source validation, and full access to supporting materials by DoD analysts and action officers.

OSINT can help DoD in two ways: (1) crisis support; and (2) support to on-going operations, bringing to bear in both cases the best and most relevant open sources to respond to established DoD needs with OSINT rather than just information. OSINT includes global geospatial data and global logistics information.

Bureaucratic misperceptions notwithstanding, OSINT is not free to current users and is not being supplied by the Intelligence Community to DoD in any significant way. However, a modest investment by DoD elements in OSINT can significantly multiply the effectiveness of current classified intelligence capabilities while simultaneously improving general intelligence support to DoD policy makers, acquisition managers, and warfighters.

Open Source Intelligence: Private Sector Capabilities to Support DoD Policy, Acquisitions, and Operations⁽¹⁾

By Mr. Robert D. Steele⁽²⁾ President, OSS Inc., and

Dr. Mark M. Lowenthal⁽³⁾ , President OSS USA

"…the concept of UN intelligence promises to turn traditional principles on their heads. Intelligence will have to be based in information that is collected primarily by overt means, that is by methods that do not threaten the target state or group and do not compromise the integrity or impartiality of the UN."⁽⁴⁾

"If it is 85% accurate, on time, and I can share it, this is a lot more useful to me than a compendium of Top Secret Codeword materials that are too much, too late, and require a safe and three security officers to move around the battlefield." ⁽⁵⁾

Introduction: DoD and Open Source Intelligence. Faced with ever-increasing requirements for intelligence support--particularly in Tier III and Tier IV countries where classified capabilities have not been focused and operational funds have not been pre-programmed--the U.S. military has discovered the unique value of commercial imagery and developed EAGLE VISION and JOINT VISION. Commercial imagery is one small portion of the remarkable range of open sources that can support DoD policy-makers, acquisition program managers, and operational commanders. This paper proposes that DoD develop a concept of operations for providing open source intelligence (OSINT) to all elements of DoD, in both CONUS and OCONUS.

OSINT is uniquely suited for support to DoD operations because OSINT relies exclusively on information and expertise obtained through legal and ethical means. This gives OSINT greater utility and flexibility in working with Congress, with foreign coalition partners, and with civilian agencies not routinely cleared for classified information. There are three primary reasons for this:

First, contingencies have tended to arise in lower Tier countries (as defined by PDD-35)--such as Haiti or Somalia--where the United States is paying much less attention overall and where national collection resources are least likely to provide much useful information, especially at the outset of a crisis. These are also areas where analytical expertise has been cut back into order to meet demands within the top Tiers and the Hard Targets. As DCI Tenet himself has observed, the Intelligence Community cannot now cover the hard targets and also provide global coverage.

Second, the lead-ups to these issues have not relied on highly classified intelligence as was often the case during the Cold War. Many of these situations -- physical conditions in Somalia, the existence of a junta in Haiti, Milosevic's early statements of his intentions re Bosnia, refugee flows into Goma, Zaire -- have been evident from unclassified sources.

Third, these issues have emphasized recourse to international organizations and broad diplomatic and military coalitions beyond the bounds of the United States' traditional allies and intelligence partners. These are not instances in which much classified intelligence can be easily used, given the increasing need to share information across a broad spectrum of partners.

Fourth, The "information explosion" has increased the amount of available information, while also creating a new "intelligence gap" between what needs to be known, and what can be processed and exploited. Both producers and consumers of intelligence are being flooded with information of mixed value, and both lack the expertise and tools to filter, distill, summarize, visualize, and digest the "nuggets".

OSINT has the advantages of providing a great deal of the intelligence that DoD would find useful as soon as the crisis breaks; of being available to DoD independently and without waiting for the DCI and CIA to sort out their own priorities and needs; and of being more easily used within DoD in terms of sharing it with politico-military partners or coalition forces not cleared for classified.

The Characteristics of OSINT -- Intelligence, Not Information. OSINT, also known as unclassified intelligence or, in the business community, as "decision support" or "business intelligence", must be carefully distinguished from open source information (OSIF), which is acquired in support of both the OSINT process carried out by the private sector, and the all-source process carried out by the U.S. Intelligence Community. OSIF consists of volumes of multi-media and multi-lingual information gathered for further processing and consideration. OSINT, in sharp contrast, integrates world-class human expertise with an integrated human-technical process to produce only "just enough, just in time" intelligence--information tailored to support a specific decision...

~ Read full report ~

 

Year of the Disinformation Specialist

" ... Alex Beam wrote a column yesterday that shows the poverty of knowledge in the anti-conspiracy press. He's discussing that propaganda coup "Oswald's Ghost," a masterfully presented, if wildly underinformed special on the Kennedy Assassination.

Beam, who obviously knows little about the case, finds the special persuasive. It doesn't occur to him that the special was a deliberately one-sided presentation designed to try to persuade conspiracy believers that there was no conspiracy.

[ ... ]

John Newman, himself a former intelligence analyst, to write Oswald and the CIA, a lengthy book in which he carefully, if perhaps too subtly, lays out the case that the CIA was controlling Oswald and moving him around like a pawn on a chessboard. In The Assassinations, I and others discuss many specific pieces of information that make a strong case for the CIA's involvement in the crime. None of this information, as Jim DiEugenio points out in his review of "Oswald's Ghost", is debunked, because none of it is even mentioned. Stone frames the case by keeping it locked prior to the release of the information that much more clearly makes the case for conspiracy.

Is the special persuasive? Sure, to the uninformed. But consider this. Would you be comfortable serving on a jury where the prosecutor was allowed to present both his case and the defendant's case? Absolutely not. But curiously, some, like Alex Beam, have no problem accepting it when the media does it.

I warned the readers of this blog that we were entering a year of disinformation on the assassinations because we're in a 'big' year, the 40th anniversary of the MLK and RFK assassinations, and the 45th year of the JFK case. "Oswald's Ghost" is only the opening salvo. Much worse is coming. ... "

~ Read more... ~

'Spy' Request Violated Long-Standing U.S. Policy

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4262036&page=1

 

Exclusive: Peace Corps, Fulbright Scholar Asked to 'Spy' on Cubans, Venezuelans

 

In an apparent violation of U.S. policy, Peace Corps volunteers and a Fulbright scholar were asked by a U.S. Embassy official in Bolivia "to basically spy" on Cubans and Venezuelans in the country, according to Peace Corps personnel and the Fulbright scholar involved.

"I was told to provide the names, addresses and activities of any Venezuelan or Cuban doctors or field workers I come across during my time here," Fulbright scholar John Alexander van Schaick told ABCNews.com in an interview in La Paz.

Van Schaick's account matches that of Peace Corps members and staff who claim that last July their entire group of new volunteers was instructed by the same U.S. Embassy official in Bolivia to report on Cuban and Venezuelan nationals.

The State Department says any such request was "in error" and a violation of long-standing U.S. policy which prohibits the use of Peace Corps personnel or Fulbright scholars for intelligence purposes.

"We take this very seriously and want to stress this is not in any way our policy," a senior State Department official told ABCNews.com.

The Fulbright scholar van Schaick, a 2006 Rutgers University graduate, says the request came at a mandatory orientation and security briefing meeting with Assistant Regional Security Officer Vincent Cooper at the embassy on the morning of Nov. 5, 2007.

According to van Schaick, the request for information gathering "surfaced casually" halfway through Cooper's 30-minute, one-on-one briefing, which initially dealt with helpful tips about life and security concerns in Bolivia...

~ Read more... ~ 

Read the Peace Corps' full statement.